Rum House restaurant styles itself as a Caribbean taqueria, which
translates as a cantina with lots of rum punch and other tropes of an
island vacation resort. If you're after a good meal rather than just a
fruit-flavored buzz, the taqueria part of the equation is more
important than the Caribbean one.

Baton Rouge natives Michael Bouchert and Kelly Ponder
opened Rum House in June. It's their first foray in the restaurant
business, but they got an early boost from David Adjey, a Toronto-based
chef and television personality starring in an upcoming Food Network
series called Restaurant 101. Each show features Adjey coaching
new restaurateurs, and Rum House is scheduled to appear in the premiere
episode in January.

The Restaurant 101 team was gone by the time Rum
House opened Uptown. But sitting in the restaurant's colorful,
window-lined dining room, the Caribbean-theme that informs this place
is as easy to read as any film crew's shooting script. Corrugated steel
awning and Christmas lights over the bar? Check. Reggae on the sound
system? Check. Rum cocktails topped with more fruit than Carmen
Miranda? Check. Making sure no one incinerates the jerk chicken? Better
check that one again.

Jerk figures prominently on the menu, but the kitchen
does not have it down yet. It was bad enough chopped into dried, burnt
bits for a taco, but at least then there was a corn tortilla to hide
behind. In the entree version, jerk seasoning was present only in
blotches that seemed patted over the badly burned bird. A cocktail
umbrella stuck into the meat as garnish might as well have been a white
flag signaling the poor chicken's surrender.

I was ready to give up on the place after that, but the
jerk fish on a subsequent visit made up for a lot. This was grilled
drum, cooked skin-on in a winning style that retains much of its
moisture. The jerk component still didn't make much of an impression,
but a melting bulb of butter with lime and garlic gave the dish vivid
flavor nonetheless.

I didn't find any appetizers I can recommend: certainly
not the $8 scoop of guacamole dressed up with mango chunks, and not the
unforgivably bland Jamaican patties.

But Rum House is on to something with its tacos. While
tiny (three restrained bites will polish one off), the best pack a lot
of flavor into small packages and do so in a different way than
traditional Mexican tacos. Fried shallots topped appropriately chewy
brisket on one, while puffy, fried mahi mahi with jalapeno coleslaw
will give the fish tacos at Taqueria Corona a run for their money. My
favorite taco here has a tiny dice of rib meat, tangy tomato sauce,
fresh cilantro and smoky, charred poblano pepper.

Rum House seems to attract a decent crowd, especially on
game days when the place resembles a smoke-free sports bar substitute
for people with kids. And already, Bouchert and Ponder have shown the
smarts to play up their menu's bright spots, adding more seafood tacos
and a line of sandwiches in the past few weeks. With luck, by the time
Restaurant 101 airs this winter, Rum House will be ready for its
close-up.